


Karma's World

by Insomnia_Productions



Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Pocket Karma, because the only thing better than Karma is six-inch-tall Karma, sort of maybe karunagi if you cross your eyes i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 15:27:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4882012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Insomnia_Productions/pseuds/Insomnia_Productions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When one of Okuda's experiments goes a little wrong, everyone's favorite redhead is shrunk down to less than six inches in height.  Hilarity ensues. </p><p>And feels.<br/>Lots of feels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Karma's World

No one was quite sure how it had happened, but, in retrospect, something of the sort was hardly unexpected. After all, they _were_ the E-Class, tasked with the assassination of their teacher, a yellow octopod who could fly around the world in the blink of an eye. They knew this because he had done so, several times, stopping along the way to pick up treats for himself. He never brought anything back for them, though, the bastard.  
  
_In any case_ , the word 'normal’ had lost all meaning in this classroom, so when it happened, the students of the End Class were shocked, but not entirely surprised.  
  
‘It’ being the sudden and quite undignified shrinking of Akabane Karma.  
  
No one noticed, at first, the thin wisps of smoke rising from the still-damp spots on Karma’s skin and clothes— places that had been hit when Okuda dropped a rather large vial containing an indeterminate liquid. But when the misty wisps began the form a cloud around the redhead, well, heads did begin to turn. The class watched as the misted swirled around their classmate, and when at last it dissipated, all that remained on his chair was a bundle of clothes.  
  
The E Class stared.  
  
Eventually, Nakamura found her voice. “Karma?”  
  
For a long moment, there was silence. And then, much to the discomfort of the class, the bundle began to move.  
  
Or, more accurately, a small lump _beneath_ the bundle began to move. The class watched with bated breaths as a small tuft of red appeared above the fabric, followed by a tiny pair of golden eyes darting about wildly.  
  
“What the _hell_ ,” the tiny figure said, in a voice that was far softer and somewhat higher, but most definitely Karma’s.  
  
His sentiments were echoed by the rest of the class, who sat very still in their seats, unsure of what to do.  
  
Finally, Koro-Sensei coughed. “Well, class, it appears we have a bit of a problem.”  
  
“No shit,” grumbled Karma, disappearing back beneath the bundle.  
  
At that moment, Karasuma popped his head into the classroom. “What’s going on in here?” He took in the bundle of clothes on Karma’s chair. “What are you doing?”  
  
Sugino raised a hand. “Karma shrank.”  
  
Karasuma looked at him. Looked at the bundle. Looked at the rows of serious faces. Looked at the yellow octopus holding a grammar book in one tentacle.  
  
“…Of course he did.” Karasuma sighed heavily. He really wasn’t paid enough for this. “Does anyone know why?”  
  
At this, Karma reemerged from the bundle, wrapping part of a sleeve around him like a towel. “Duh. It was Okuda’s bloody doom-chemical, the one she spilled on me.” He leaned to the side, and glared vaguely in Okuda’s general direction. At his usual size, this would have likely caused at least four pants to be wetted, but, given the circumstances, all he managed to do was look ridiculously adorable, earning a himself a chorus of _awwww_ s.  
  
“…I hate all of you.”  
  
“C’mon, Karma-kun, you don’t mean that,” Nagisa smiled, crouching beside his friend’s chair. Karma huffed and looked away.  
  
“…Nagisa-kun?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
Karma’s face turned a little pink. “Could you… get me some… clothes… please?”  
  
Nagisa blinked, taking in the pile of fabric Karma had buried himself in.  
  
_Oh._  
  
Of course, he’d shrunk right out of his clothes.  
  
“Um… yeah, okay.” Nagisa stood, trying in vain to stifle a laugh at the embarrassment written across the usually so blasé Karma’s face. “Guys, he needs clothes.”  
  
Karma sputtered indignantly. “Whoa, okay, go ahead and announce it to the word, why don’t you?”  
  
“I’ll see if Irina has anything,” Karasuma promised. “In the meanwhile, Okuda, do you remember what was in that vial you dropped? If that’s really what caused Karma to shrink, it may be helpful to recall what went into it, so we can find a something to counter it.”  
  
The government-provided PE teacher left, and immediately the class swarmed around Okuda, leaving Karma to watch helplessly from his fabric nest.  
  
“Okuda, what did you _put_ in that thing?”  
  
“Think you can mass produce it?”  
  
“Hell yeah, can we shrink the Principal?”  
  
“No, you _doof_ , we can’t shrink the Principal.”  
  
“Hey, Okuda, no pressure okay?”  
  
“Yeah, I don’t think anyone here really minds if you can’t figure out how to change Karma back to normal.”  
  
“He’s better this way, anyway.”  
  
“Yeah, he’s less scary.”  
  
“He’s kinda cute now.”  
  
“I CAN HEAR YOU, YOU KNOW!” It was evident that Karma was yelling at the top of his lungs, but even then, it barely reached the volume of his normal voice, and the class only began to laugh harder.  
  
“Dawwww, he’s so cute when he’s mad!”  
  
“Shit, he’s angry, we should probably not turn him back now.”  
  
“Let’s keep him like this forever!”  
  
“Yay, he can be our class pet~”  
  
They continued in this fashion for over twenty minutes as the teachers conferred, finally returning with some tiny clothes and a plan.  
  
Irina handed Karma his new clothes, not bothering to hide her snickering laughter, while Karasuma asked Okuda again, “Do you remember what you put into the mixture?”  
  
Okuda nodded flipping her notebook open. “Yes, I always write down how much of everything I put in, in case I need to make more.” She handed the paper to Karasuma, who folded it up and slipped in into his pocket, from which he pulled out his phone.  
  
“Great, I’ll send this over to my boss and request him to run some tests.” He nodded at Karma. “Hopefully they’ll find a way to counteract it.”  
  
“Hopefully?” Now dressed, Karma stood with folded arms atop his bundle. “Wow, that inspires so much hope, thanks." Drawn up to his full height, he was less than six inches tall.  
  
Karasuma just shook his head, walking out of the room with his phone to his ear. Irina followed suit, and Koro-sensei returned to the blackboard.  
  
“Well, then, class, we’ll just continue with our lesson, then.” He stared at Karma for a moment, who had somehow managed to climb up onto his desk, and was glaring defiantly at the rest of the class. “Could someone please take care of Karma-kun? Perhaps one of you could keep him on your desk?”  
  
“Nagisa-kun,” Karma said immediately, turning to the bluenette.  
  
Nagisa complied, lowering his hand onto the desk for Karma to climb on. Once he was safely nestled in Nagisa’s cupped palm, the class’ most skilled assassin set his friend down gently on his desk, beside his open notebook, and sat down as the class resumed.  
  
Everything went smoothly for the first twenty minutes; Koro-sensei taught, Karma lay on his stomach perpendicular to Nagisa’s notebook, watching him write, and Nagisa just about managed not to let Karma’s newfound chibi adorableness disrupt his note taking.  
  
But, after twenty minutes had passed, Nagisa became dimly aware of a pulsing pressure on his hand, which was resting against the paper. He looked down to see Karma punching his hand repeatedly.  
  
“What?” Nagisa whispered, using the other hand to gently push him away.  
  
“I’m bored,” Karma whispered back, barely audible.  
  
Nagisa smiled. At this size, his friend couldn’t just bunk class.  
  
“Too bad. Some of us actually pay attention in class.”  
  
“But Naaaaagiiiiiisaaaaaa-kuuuuuun, I’m _bored_.”  
  
Nagisa used a finger to flick the six-inch pest, and Karma promptly fell into a sitting position, appearing rather disgruntled.  
  
“Shh, I’m working.” Nagisa lifted his pencil to write, and Karma immediately hopped up and flopped down on his back on the bluenette’s notebook, arms and legs splayed across the paper. He looked imploringly at Nagisa.  
  
“ _Please_ , Nagisa-kun, let’s _do_ something. I’m so _bored_.”  
  
Nagisa twirled his pencil, noting that, after an hour of taking meticulous notes, the nib was quite blunt. He smiled.  
  
Quicker than a blink, Nagisa brought the blunt nib of his pencil down onto Karma’s stomach. The redhead let out a comical yelp and tried to flip over, but Nagisa was too quick, scribbling with the pencil across his friend’s stomach and neck. Karma was laughing hysterically, rolling around to avoid the pencil of doom, and, although neither noticed it, the entire class had dropped everything to watch.  
  
“S-s-stop i-it! N-Nagisa-kun, _why_?” Karma curled into a ball, shaking and laughing and batting at the pencil with one tiny hand.  
  
Nagisa drew back and smiled. “You _said_ you were bored.”  
  
Karma huffed, sitting up. “Well. Thanks. I guess.”  
  
“Okay, now that you’ve been entertained, would you _please_ get off my notebook?”  
  
“Nope.”  
  
Nagisa stared down at his minuscule friend for a moment. Then he reached over and plucked up the back of Karma’s shirt, lifting him up and placing him on an open space in the desk. Karma glowered at him.  
  
“ _Hey_ , no touchy,” he instructed, brushing himself off.  
  
Nagisa grinned. “Sorry.”  
  
The room was silent for a moment, and Karma felt a vague sense of unease. He brushed it off as paranoia, but no sooner had he done so than—  
  
“That was so cute!”  
  
“I’m telling you guys, we have to keep him this way forever.”  
  
“I seriously can’t even right now.”  
  
Karma growled. “Could you all just _shut up_?”  
  
  
  
  
  
Class eventually drew to a close, and Karma was pleased to find himself being picked up and carried outside for lunch, with the rest of the class swarming around the bluenette. Everyone was buzzing with ideas.  
  
“Are you hungry, Karma? How’re we supposed to feed him, d’ya think?”  
  
“Ooh, Karma, can we put you on a frisbee and send you flying?”  
  
“No no, use a hat, like in that one movie…”  
  
“Hey, Karma, do you think if we caught a squirrel, you could ride it, like a war horse?”  
  
Karma clasped his hands over his ears, trying in vain to shut out the cacophony of impossibly loud voices. He hadn’t realized it earlier, what with the shock of suddenly shrinking, but when a class of over twenty excitable kids talks all at once… well, the noises can really do damage to the ears of a tiny person such as himself.  
“Think we can develop an assassination around him?”  
  
“Nah, Koro-sensei’s probably expecting that.”  
  
“He expects everything, we can still try.”  
  
“O-o-or we could just enjoy it while it lasts? Not everything has to be about assassination, you know?”  
  
“Oh, I’m sorry, do you _want_ the world to explode?”  
  
The voices grew louder and louder as friction between the students increased, and Karma pressed his hands so tightly over his ears that he though he might just crush his own skull. It took all he had not to curl up into a tight ball and scream, but there was no way he would be doing that any time soon. His pride had already suffered enough. Thankfully, Nagisa noticed his predicament before the cacophony grew too much for the prideful teen to handle.  
  
“Guys, be quiet, you’re hurting him!”  
  
As if someone had hit a mute button on the world, the class fell silent, all eyes turning to Karma, who cautiously lowered his hands from his ears and opened his eyes.  
  
He sat with hunched shoulders, avoiding eye contact with his classmates. “…Thanks, I guess.”  
  
“Sorry, Karma,” Kanzaki said quietly, and was immediately echoed by the others.  
  
“Here,” Kayano broke off a small piece of pear from the slices in her lunchbox and handed it to him. “Can you eat that?”  
  
To Karma, the piece of fruit was about the size of a tennis ball, but he nodded gratefully and dug in.  
  
“Seriously though, can we put you on a frisbee?” This came from Nakamura, who was instantly backed up by Isogai.  
  
“Oh, please, Karma? It’ll be so much fun!”  
  
Karma sprang up and grinned wickedly. He had his doubts about this idea, but he also had a reputation to save. “Bring it on.”  
  
  
  
  
  
When Karma returned to his place on Nagisa’s desk, his usually pale face was flushed, his red hair was messy and windswept, and he couldn’t sit still for even a minute, let along the entire lesson.  
  
Yes, the frisbee had been a fun activity while it lasted, as had the squirrel (regardless of the many injuries Karma had sustained as a result of that particular escapade), and the time he’d been lost in the grass and had had to run around in a panic until Maehara finally found him sitting dejectedly on a toadstool, but all of these activities had only served to further pump the redhead’s adrenaline, and by the time the school day drew to a close, Nagisa had to physically restrain his friend from jumping from one desk to another, eventually constructing a prison for Karma out of a bunch of thick dictionaries Koro-sensei had lying around. When Koro-sensei finally set down his chalk and closed his textbook, both boys were filled with relief. But the end of the day brought another problem, one that no one was really willing to take responsibility for…  
  
  
  
  
  
“Well, _someone’s_ going to have to take him home.” Karasuma stood with crossed arms at the front of the room, watching and the students all shifted nervously. Having a six-inch Karma to play with was fun and all, but no one was quite willing to take the volatile teenager home for the night. Karma himself wasn’t exactly helping the situation; realizing his situation, Karma had quickly decided that he could survive the night on his own, thank you very much, and had resumed his previous defiant glare, eyes daring anyone to say otherwise.  
  
Nagisa looked down at his desk, at the small redhead scowling around with folded arms and a posture that said he could very well take care of himself. Perhaps if Karma had been his usual size, Nagisa could’ve believed him. But, at only six inches tall, his dangerous friend suddenly looked very small and very alone, and Nagisa felt something tug at his heartstrings.  
  
“I’ll take him.”  
  
Karma dropped his stance and looked up at the bluenette in shock. “Really?”  
  
Nagisa shrugged. “Yeah. We’re friends, right?”  
  
Karma smiled in spite of himself, and then quickly tried to hide it with a smirk. “Yeah, yeah.”  
  
“All right, if that’s settled,” Koro-sensei motioned to the door. “Class is dismissed.”  
  
Nagisa packed his things away, and then carefully lifted Karma up. Small though he was, the redhead was quite conspicuous, sitting in Nagisa’s palm.  
  
“Sorry, Karma-kun, I have to put you in my pocket.”  
  
“You _what_.” As anticipated, Karma was not happy with this proposal. “Nagisa-kun, don’t you dare—“ His protests were cut off as he was dropped unceremoniously into Nagisa’s pocket, where he stayed the whole way home.  
  
It was dark in there, dark and hot and stuffy, and Karma hated every second of it, so when he heard the first voice— “Ah, Nagisa, you’re home!”—he though he might actually scream from happiness.  
  
“Hello, Mom.”  
  
“How was your day?”  
  
“Good, thanks.”  
  
“Did you learn a lot?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Oh, how Karma wished this pointless conversation would end already. After what seems like years, Karma felt Nagisa moving again. After a minute or so, he heard a door shut, and Nagisa’s hand slid gently into the pocket to scoop him up and deposit him on a white desk littered with books. Karma gasped dramatically, never happier to breathe in the fresh air. Nagisa chuckled lightly and sank into a chair, pulling out his notebooks and studying the homework problems they’d been assigned that day. Karma stood and explored the desk , taking in his wide view of the room as Nagisa’s pencil scratched against the paper.  
  
After a moment, the redhead grew bored again, and hopped onto Nagisa’s notebook, squinting at the neatly written math problems.  
  
“You got that one wrong, Nagisa-kun,” he pointed out, kneeling next to the offending equation. “You can’t just shift that around, you have to square root it first. And this one, see, you forgot to flip the inequality.”  
  
“Oh. Thanks.” Nagisa got to work on the questions, smiling happily when Karma approved them. They carried on like this for the rest of the evening, with Karma carefully overseeing Nagisa’s work, and pointing out any mistakes. For a moment, Nagisa wondered why he hadn’t asked Karma for help before. After all, he’d said it himself, hadn’t he— they were friends. Perhaps he just didn’t want to look stupid, not in front of this brilliant boy who aced everything their school threw at him without lifting a finger.  
  
But Karma wasn’t treating him like an idiot. Sure, he rolled his eyes at some mistakes, and scoffed and tutted and poked Nagisa’s hand whenever the bluenette screwed up, but it felt friendly, somehow. He liked it.  
  
“Nagisa! Dinner’s ready!”  
  
The bluenette stood quickly, stacking his textbooks into a pile on his desk. “Sorry, Karma-kun, I have to go. But I’ll sneak you some food, okay?”  
  
Karma scuttled after him, almost falling off the desk. “What? What about me?”  
  
“Just… wait there, okay? Sorry, I have to go now.” And just like that, he was gone.  
  
Karma slumped dejectedly against the textbook pile, which towered high above his head. It seemed like he was in for another half hour of boredom. But, before he knew it, the day’s activities had caught up to him, and his eyes closed all on their own.  
  
Karma woke to a gentle prodding and the sound of footsteps. Nagisa was shaking him gently, holding a crushed cookie in one hand. “Here, I brought you dinner. But my mom’s coming upstairs now, so you need to hide.”  
  
Karma darted up and ran behind the textbooks, covering his head and cookie crumbs were showered down on him from above.  
  
Nagisa straightened just as the door opened, and Karma settled down to enjoy his dinner.  
  
“Nagisa, I went shopping today. Here, look, I bought you a brand new uniform, go try it on.”  
  
Nagisa padded away, and a few moments later, Karma heard his footsteps coming back. Odd though, he was moving slowly, almost as if he were dragging his feet.  
  
Well, no matter. This cookie was amazing; Karma would have to thank him later.  
  
“Ahh, Nagisa, you look so cute,” his mother cooed, and Karma could have gagged. “That skirt looks wonderful on you~”  
  
This time, Karma really did come close to gagging. _Skirt?_  
  
He stood and peered around the edge of the textbooks. Nagisa’s mom was beaming at her son, who was indeed wearing a brand-new uniform. But, to Karma’s surprise, it was a girl’s uniform.  
  
“You must wear this to school tomorrow, okay?”  
  
“I can’t.” It was so quiet, it could have been mistaken for the wind. But Nagisa’s mom head it.  
  
“What did you say?”  
  
“I can’t wear it,” Nagisa repeated in a whisper. “I’ll get in trouble.”  
  
_Smack!_  
  
Karma blanched, ducking back behind the textbooks and Nagisa stumbled. Something in his stomach twisted, and it wasn’t the cookie.  
  
“You’ll do what I tell you,” the older woman’s voice was eerily calm. “I am your mother. I have given you everything you have. You will do what I tell you.”  
  
Karma heard more footsteps, and then the door slammed and Nagisa walked slowly to the bathroom.  
  
Karma walked to the edge of the desk, to the side that bordered his friend’s bed. Nagisa walked into the room, in pajamas this time, and sank onto the edge of his bed. His cheek was bright red, and his eyes were fixed on the floor. Karma gazed at his friend, then at the bed, then at himself. Considered his chances.  
  
He leapt off the desk, landing hard on the bed, and made his way over to Nagisa and quickly and possible. He used the wrinkles in Nagisa’s pajamas to climb up his leg, arriving where his hands were clasped in his lap. Karma knelt beside them and put both of his hands over Nagisa’s.  
  
The bluenette gaped at him, eyes wide, and Karma turned red.  
  
“…I’m sorry, okay? I… why didn’t you tell me?” He mumbled, avoiding eye contact.  
  
Nagisa shrugged, opening his palm for the redhead to climb in. “I… didn’t want anyone to know, I guess. I didn’t want you to make fun of me.”  
  
Karma stomped on Nagisa’s palm. Hard. “Make fun of you? Nagisa-kun, if you’d told me, I wouldn’t have made _fun_ of you. I would’ve tried to help you. Hell, if I were my usual size right now, I’d probably kill your mom, right here and now.” He sat down and settled on Nagisa’s palm, leaning against his friend’s curled fingers.  
  
Nagisa sighed. “Karma-kun, no.” He paused. “But… thank you.”  
  
Karma shrugged and snuggled into Nagisa’s palm a little more, although he would later deny it adamantly. “Yeah, yeah, that’s enough mush for one night. Also if you speak of this to anyone, I’ll kill you.”  
  
Nagisa laughed. “No you won’t.”  
  
Karma’s eyes slid shut, and he curled up on Nagisa’s palm. “You’re right, I won’t.”  
  
Nagisa beamed. This, he knew, was the closest Karma would ever come to saying he cared about the bluenette.  
  
“Hey, don’t go to sleep yet. I’ll make you a bed.” He sprang up from the bed and set Karma gently down on the table, rushing back to his closet and rummaging around in the bottom. After a few moments of shifting, he pulled out a woolen sweater and an old shirt. He folded up the sweater and placed it on his desk, and then draped the shirt over the top and pressed them both down. Then, after carefully smoothing out any wrinkles, he prodded the half-sleeping Karma, and lifted him onto the makeshift bed. Karma curled up on it almost immediately, yawning tiredly and burying his face into the soft fabric. It smelt warm and familiar. It smelt like Nagisa.  
  
Karma decided he liked this new bed.  
  
The room was plunged into darkness as Nagisa flicked the lights off and crawled into bed.  
  
“‘Night, Nagisa-kun,” Karma mumbled sleepily.  
  
“'Night.”  
  
  
  
  
  
The following morning, Nagisa woke to a quiet whimpering. He stretched, blinking blearily around, and his eyes fell on the nest of clothes on his desk. Nagisa sat bolt upright, and swung himself out of bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes to peer over at his friend.  
  
It appeared that the fearless, cocky, carefree boy was the source of the whimpers. Karma was trembling in his sleep, and if one were to watch really closely (which Nagisa _absolutely wasn’t_ , shut up) one could just make a thin rim of tears bordering his eyelids. Nagisa reached out cautiously with one finger and gently placed it on the redhead’s shoulder, shaking him gently.  
  
“Karma-kun? Wake up, it’s okay.”  
  
Karma shuddered, and then his golden eyes flicked open and he sat up, squinting blearily at the other boy.  
  
“...’Gisa?”  
  
“Yeah, it’s me,” Nagisa replied softly. “You okay?”  
  
Karma flushed. “Y-yeah. I’m… fine.” His minuscule hands were balled into fists, and unshed tears still sparkled at the corners of his eyes. Karma seemed very determined to pretend they weren’t there, and Nagisa caught him blinking rapidly when he though the bluenette wasn’t looking. Nagisa laughed shakily.  
  
“Hey… you saw me… you saw what my mom… you saw all my personal problems, last night. It’s okay if you, you know, cry, in front of me, now. It’s okay.”  
  
“I know it’s okay,” Karma replied, rolling his eyes. “I’m okay, too. And what’s this rubbish about me crying? I don’t cry.” He pushed himself up, dusting down his clothes and smiling widely up at his friend. “So? What’re we doing today? It’s Saturday, after all. And don’t you dare say homework, because I swear to god if I have to sit there and watch you write for another _minute_ , I am going to—”  
  
“Karma-kun.”  
  
Karma stopped talking, eyeing his friend quizzically. “Yeah?”  
  
Nagisa kneeled down by the desk, solemnly regarding his friend. “You were trembling and whimpering just now, and you were _almost_ crying. Please, tell me why.”  
  
Karma scowled and looked away. “It’s nothing. Just forget about it. My reputation’s suffered enough already.”  
  
“Please, Karma-kun? It’s only fair, after last night. And what’re friends for, anyway? You’re not alone in the world, Karma-kun. You don’t have to take everything on by yourself.”  
  
It seemed silly to say such dramatic things, all for just one little nightmare, but as Nagisa spoke, he realized the truth of his own words. The E Class worked together; even Terasaka had his own small group of like-minded people. But Karma… Karma had always been something of a lone wolf. Back when they were still in their first year, Nagisa had been happy, honored even, to be the one person who broke through Karma’s steel walls. Even now, although the redhead cooperated with the rest of the class, he was separate from the rest of them, encased in his own personal bubble, his own private world. So far, only Nagisa had been able to get so far as the door of Karma’s world. All year, he’d been standing there on the porch with a hand around the doorknob. But he’d never opened the door, for above the doorknob was a complicated keyhole, and Nagisa did not have the key.  
  
The knob was cool in his hand, but useless. And then, for the first time, Nagisa felt the cold touch of brass spread to his other hand. Nagisa raised his hand and opened his fist.  
Lying in his palm was a golden key flecked with red. It was a long key, longer than most, with a mind-bending sequence of jagged dips and rises, but it fit perfectly into the keyhole.  
Slowly, Nagisa began to turn the key, listening hard for the telltale click.  
  
“Please, Karma-kun. Please let me in.”  
  
Karma sat down very suddenly, gazing up at the bluenette with a mixture of fear and relief.  
  
_Click._  
  
“It’s… not easy, being this small. The world’s a big enough place as it is, but at this size…” He let out a shaky laugh. “You couldn’t even begin to imagine the sort of nightmare scenarios your brain thinks up when you’re this vulnerable. This… weak.” He drew his knees into his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around his legs. “I don’t have any control anymore. People can pick me up and shift me around, do whatever they want with me, and I can’t do anything about it. Someone could very easily pick me up and leave me outside, or drop me in a bowl of hot soup… or a blender… or…” he trailed off, huddling further into himself. “ _I hate it._ ”  
  
The door was unlocked. Nagisa couldn’t believe it. After all this time, the door was free, inviting him to enter.  
  
Slowly, cautiously, he began to ease the door open.  
  
Slowly, cautiously, he reached a finger out and set it carefully on Karma’s head, gently ruffling his hair. Karma let go of his legs and reached up, holding on tightly to Nagisa’s finger. A fresh line of water appeared in his eyes, and this time he didn’t try to blink them away.  
  
The door was heavy, but Nagisa finally pulled it all the way open, and stood in the doorframe with eyes screwed shut. After all this time… he was afraid.  
  
Karma’s grip tightened on Nagisa’s finger, and he choked out, “Please don’t leave me, Nagisa-kun… I don’t… I don’t want to be alone anymore.”  
  
Nagisa opened his eyes. The world before him was vast, impossibly vast, and so very beautiful. It was bursting with color, and the sky was frozen in an eternal sunset, every shade of red known to mankind dancing through the wispy clouds.  
  
Nagisa took a deep breath, casting a glance at the world behind him. And then he stepped over the doorframe, into Karma’s world, and let the door swing shut.  
  
Karma took a shaky breath and lowered his arms, wiping his face and looking up to give Nagisa a real, genuine smile.  
  
_“Thank you, Nagisa-kun.”_  
  
For a moment, the two sat in silence, basking in each other’s presence. And then, Karma spoke again.  
  
“But seriously, if you tell anyone, I will actually kill you.”

**Author's Note:**

> whoaaaa this was supposed to be funny but then
> 
> idk I just
> 
> Karma needs more love, he's really just a problematic cinnamon roll... and that love needs to come from Nagisa and only Nagisa...


End file.
